


Story Time with Sam and Steve

by LadyRavenEye



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 05:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3883459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRavenEye/pseuds/LadyRavenEye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Steve tell their grandkids how they met.  Soulmate AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Story Time with Sam and Steve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hinn_Raven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/gifts).



Even retired super heroes need breaks from swinging grandchildren around the backyard on their biceps, so when that time came the family would come into the house and Steve would tell them about the time he had met his husband.

“It almost happened then, that day,” he said.

“You mean you almost touched Pop Pop and would have figured out he was your soulmate?”

“I almost gave his behind a smack as I ran passed him, to tell you the truth,” Steve said.  The children dissolved into groans and giggles and Sam waggled his eyebrows, gone white like his hair.  From where she was fixing snacks in the kitchen their daughter gave a disapproving snort that was offset by the twitching laugh lines all over her face.

“If you’d done it that day,” Sam said when the laughter died down.  “I would have just assumed you were jealous.”

“Oh, is that how it is,” Steve said.  The look in his eyes was obvious, even now, even to children who were years away from touching their soulmates and unable to see how the blue seemed to intensify when Steve looked at Sam.

“Yeah, that’s how it is,” Sam said, looking back at Steve with a mirrored expression.

“Pop Pop, Grampa, stop being gross,” ordered a small grandchild in a piping voice.  “Tell us when you _did_ touch.  Tell us about the flying!  Tell us what it’s like to see in color for the first time!”

There was a chorus of “tell us!” behind puppy eyes in shades of blue and brown.  Steve’s heart ached that the youngest members of his family couldn’t see the nuance in their coloring, this gorgeous pallet of humanity with him and Sam at each of the poles.  He believed in the most stereotypically patriotic recesses of his heart that he’d be alive long enough for each of them to find their soulmates, so that they could fully appreciate how they had inherited the special warmth of Sam’s eyes and Steve’s tendency to blush from crown to navel.

“Be patient, we’re not there yet!” Steve said, as he had said the dozens of other times he told this story.

The whole truth, of course, was not a necessary part of this version for grandchildren.  After Steve ran him ragged around the National Mall, Sam had touched the wrong nerve moments before Steve was going to offer him a hand up onto his feet.  Sam noticed Steve’s deflections about his past and scrambled upright on his own, reaching out with words and shared experience instead of touch. 

“The next time we saw each other was at Pop Pop’s job,” Steve said.

“Pop Pop’s _day_ job,” Sam corrected.  “You’re not the only one in this room who was Cap, Cap.  And let’s not forget there’s only ever been one Falcon.”

“Forgive me, sweetheart,” Steve said.

“You’re forgiven, darlin’,” Sam said.  They leaned toward each other and rubbed the tips of their noses together, which earned horrified groans from their audience.

“Grandpas!  Focus!” said a grandbaby from behind Steve’s favorite familiar front tooth gap. 

“We didn’t touch that day at Pop Pop’s job.  We didn’t touch the next time we saw each other either, when Auntie Natasha and I showed up at Pop Pop’s house because—”

“You were running from bad guys!” said an impatient grandchild.  “Then he made you breakfast!”

“That’s right,” Sam cut in.  “And you _know_ how good my cooking is.”

In their decades together Sam had sharpened his ability to read Steve from the briefest tightening of his expression.  Sam knew there was guilt that kept Steve up at night that his grandchildren lived in a world where running from neo-Nazis was as commonplace as scrambling eggs.  No matter how many times they had wept into each others arms and told themselves it was worth it, it had been worth it, it continued to be worth it—the guilt would never go away completely.  Most of the time, though, all it took was Sam taking Steve’s hand in his and smiling, and Steve remembered he had found his soulmate in the twenty first century and they had fought wars and fallen in love and created a beautiful life together.  The proof was all around them.

Steve released the breath he had been holding.  “Auntie Natasha and I went to the place where they were keeping Pop Pop’s wings and we, um, borrowed—”

“Don’t lie, Dad,” their daughter called out, as much a part of the script as the grandchildren’s giggles that followed.  “You stole them from the American government.”

“We were going to give them back!”

“Until Uncle Bucky tore them off?” asked a grandbaby.

“Yeah,” Steve said.  Sam saw the flash of grief in his husband’s eyes.  “Uncle Bucky was really mad about being a prisoner for so long.  He didn’t mean it.”

“I have a permanent boot-print on my chest that disagrees with that,” Sam muttered.

“I miss Uncle Bucky,” said one of the older grandchildren.

“Me too,” said Steve. 

“Me three,” said Sam.  Everyone was quiet for as long as a group of small children is able to be quiet for. 

“Then what?”

“Then the three of us—Me, Auntie Natasha, and Pop Pop—had to go fight some _really_ bad guys.  We had help from our friends.  You know Aunt Sharon—that’s right, you’re named after _her_ aunt, Peggy sweetie—and your parents all knew Uncle Nick—uh huh, that’s who your dad is named after, Leila honey—” They took a detour from the story as they so often did to talk about their namesakes.  Some of the most famous people on the planet Earth (and beyond) had changed most of the people in this room’s diapers.

“So we were fighting bad guys on three big helicarriers,” Steve said.  “And the one I was on was crashing.  So I radioed Pop Pop that I needed a lift.  And he caught me.”

“Almost ripped my shoulders out of their sockets,” Sam said.

“But that’s when you knew that you were soulmates!  You saw color!” squealed a grandchild.

“No matter the circumstances,” Sam said.  “It’s an amazing moment.”

“What’s color like, Pop Pop?”

“Color is like…” Sam said.  His hand found his husband’s again.  “You can feel it in your belly and your heart as well as see it with your eyes.  You know how when you drink something hot and it slides down your throat and you can feel it all the way down?  That’s red.  Cut grass and pine needles—that’s green.  Spring nights where it’s too cold to wear short sleeves but you do it anyway ‘cause the goosebumps remind you things are getting better—that’s blue.”

“Summer nights by the fire, the smell of bark, smoke and heat,” Steve added with a dreamy expression.  “That’s brown.”

Sam rolled his eyes but the motion was betrayed by the grin that stretched across his lined face.

“Anyway.  I caught this reckless galoot and all of a sudden, in the middle of dodging bullets and bombs—there was color.  And we realized it and couldn’t even say a word because we were fighting bad guys.”

“Like Crossbones!”

“Yes, like Crossbones,” said Sam.  “Back then he had a different name, though we mostly called him Agent Assh—”

“Dad!” Their daughter bustled over from the kitchen and placed a tray full to bursting with snacks between the erstwhile superheroes and their grandchildren.  “Don’t just eat the cheese, there’s veggies too.  Yes, Maria, that means you.”

There was a brief halt in the storytelling while everyone crunched and slurped.  Sam and Steve traded looks, remembering the same conversation. 

_“Cap.  Steve.  Come in.  Are you okay?”_

_“Yeah, I’m here!  I’m still on the helicarrier!  Where are you?”_

_“I’m grounded.  The suit’s down. Sorry, Cap.”_

_“Sam, are we—I think I—”_

_“I don’t love you yet.  Not like that.  But I have to say it once, just in case.”_

_“Sam—”_

_“I love you, Steve Rogers.  Go save your friend, and the world.  Try and come back to me in one piece.”_

Once the snack tray was cleared off, Sam spoke again.

“Bruises are worse in color.  Scrapes and cuts too.  Something about shades of gray makes it easier to deal with…”

“Deal with seeing someone you love in pain,” Steve said softly.  Sam wasn’t the only one who had honed his skills at reading his partner as the years went on.  “I was pretty beat up after the fight.  But Pop Pop was there in the hospital when I woke up.”

“And I’ve been beside you ever since.”

“You sure have.”

They kissed, deaf to their grandchildren’s scandalized squeals.


End file.
